As of today, $163 million of funds from the Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund (RKDF) have been frozen in Euroclear depository. Own sources confirmed this information to 24.kg news agency.
The funds were frozen last year. Interaction between the European central depositories Euroclear and Clearstream and the Russian central depository NSD (National Settlement Depository, part of the Moscow Exchange group) was actually interrupted almost immediately after the start of the special operation in Ukraine. In early June 2022, the European Union included NSD in the sanctions list, which led to the blocking of its accounts in Euroclear and Clearstream. In total, as of the end of November, according to the bank of the Russian Federation, the assets of Russian investors in the amount of about 5.7 trillion rubles in foreign infrastructure were blocked.
In early October, the European Commission published clarifications, according to which the authorities of individual EU member states can authorize the transactions necessary to close, by January 7, 2023, contracts and agreements concluded before the imposition of sanctions against NSD on June 3. Russian market participants submitted requests for general licenses to the Belgian and Luxembourg Ministries of Finance to unfreeze the assets of all non-sanctioned investors.
In addition, in February, Belgium froze Russian assets worth €58 billion. Transactions related to the Russian Federation totaling €191 billion were also blocked.
«The frozen money of the RKDF belonged to a Russian bank, through which funds were transferred to the fund’s accounts. The money was kept in the form of bonds in one of the Belgian banks. The delegation from Kyrgyzstan notified the Belgian authorities that the money was needed for projects in the Kyrgyz Republic. It was especially noted that the authorities guarantee use of these funds within the state. It is not yet known when the funds will be unfrozen. Work is underway on this issue,» the source said.
Earlier it was reported that three ministers at once — economy and commerce, finance and justice — left for Brussels for negotiations with EU officials.
